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Chapter6 Page14

Americus Casting Call, Part I

Jason and Jonathan here, teaming up to write today’s post.

When we were young, prepubescent boys and the only comics we read were superherocomics, we used to read the only comic magazine around, Wizard. One of their articles that we loved was called ‘Casting Call’ where they basically picked actors for the roles of nerdy movies that hadn’t been made yet. They were always god-awful. One particularly awful one was their casting of a Lord of the Rings movie. They had Mandy Patinkin, the guy that played Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride, playing Aragorn. Even worse, they had Frank Oz playing Yoda playing Gollum!

Months ago, we were playing this game with Americus and thought it would be a fun blog post for the website, but we had to wait until all the main characters had been revealed.

Our first thought was that it would be made into a independent feature. It would be not widely seen, but well reviewed. The sort of movie people would see it and say, “I didn’t know that was based on a comic!”

Here’s what we came up with:

Neil Barton – Keir Gilchrist

Keir’s has played the awkward teenager type in the United States of Tara. He might not be the spitting image of Neil, but he seems to have a physicality that captures his character perfectly.

Danny Burns – Erik Per Sullivan

Erik who? It’s Dewey from Malcom In The Middle! He’s all grown up and doesn’t have that dopey-little kid look anymore… well, he kind of does. Really, we thought it would be awesome to see Dewey from Malcolm In The Middle in the Americus movie.

Charlotte Murphy – Zooey Deschanel

This is a no-brainer for us. Zooey Deschanel has been the hip, cute actress of indie films for over a decade. In fact, we were going to cast someone else in this part, but Ms. Deschanel’s lawyers called to inform us on her monopoly on this type of role.

Carol Barton – Hope Davis

We had trouble coming up with an actress we thought would fit, but we eventually decided on Hope Davis. In a lot of her movies, like About Schmidt, American Splendor or Synecdoche, New York, she plays someone like Carol, who despite what has happens to them is able to maintain a quiet optimism.

Nancy Burns – Elizabeth Perkins

Danny’s mom is an unstoppable force, and we think Elizabeth Perkins would do a fine job portraying that. She’s played a similar mom-you-love-to-hate on Weeds, and it would be interesting to see her take on Nancy’s religious zeal.

Chloe Moretz – Jael DeSelby

Between her work in Kick-Ass and the remake of Let The Right One In, Chloe Moretz seems like she can provide perfect amount of angst to the recently introduced character of Jael.

Apathea Ravenchilde – Saorise Ronan

We first noticed her in City of Ember, and since then it seems like she’s been popping up everywhere like Lovely Bones and the upcoming Hanna. In all of these movies the characters she plays seem to have a toughness to them that would suit Apathea well. Plus, look at that picture! She’s already wearing a cloak and everything! She’d be a perfect fit.

Selke – voiced by Neko Case

Neko was one of the inspirations for Apathea Ravenchilde’s character design, and it seems appropriate to give her a place in a film adaptation. She’s also had experience doing voice work for some shows on Adult Swim. Plus, anyone who’s heard her talk at her concerts knows she can pull of sounding tough as nails (Warning: Salty language).

Auriel Ravenchilde – Catherine Keener

Apathea’s mother isn’t a role with lots of screen time, but she is important to the fictional heroine. Catherine Keener has the presence and talent to make the most of this cameo. Also, like Zooey Deschanel, she is an indie film staple.

Grimhilder – Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Another indie star! Even though his career seems to be heading towards big blockbusters like G.I. Joe and Inception, maybe JGL would like to get back to his roots and play Apathea’s snakey, er, dragon-y half-brother.

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So keep an eye out for Americus: The Movie! Coming soon to a local arthouse theatre near you!!

(click the poster to see it in all its crazy detail)

Oh, wait! We just got a call from our agents… it looks like Americus has been optioned by a major Hollywood studio! They like what we have, but they have some ideas they’d like to discuss.

Tune in next Friday for the next installment… Americus Casting Call II: The Big-Time Hollywood Version!

Discussion (3) ¬

Awesome! Saorise Ronan is so perfect for Apathea is hurts! City of Ember is such an (almost) great movie that few have seen. I’d love to see her fighting a hoard of lizard men. Good job Jason and John!